Private James Innes

Private James Innes, 1st/7th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He was killed in Belgium on 30th October 1917, aged 21 during the Battle ofThird Ypres.  He was the son of Andrew and Christine Innes of Butterdean, Grantshouse and was a native of Scremerston. He is buried in Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood, Zonnebeke, Flanders, Belgium. During the period 28th-31st December the Battalion were holding front line trenches at Passchendaele and had 11 Other Ranks killed. The photographs show the general desolation of the Flanders battlefield. The incessant shelling had destroyed the fragile Flanders drainage systems and turned the ground into a quagmire. The final photo shows the impressive Memorial raised to the 50th ( Northumbrian ) Division of which it was part until February 1918. It was erected near the village of Weiltje in the Ypres Salient where nearby the Division had fought its first action of the War on 26th April 1915 during the Battle of St. Julien only days after landing on the Continent.

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